25 Scary Money Statistics (Part 2)

Transcript:

25 plus scary money statistics. Part two right now.

What's up everybody. And welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of master money. co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be going through part two of 25 plus. Scary money statistics that you need to know. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to master money.

co slash newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love. Listen to this podcast on. If you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or leaving that thumbs up on YouTube. On YouTube.

We're actually just under my name. Androgen Cola. Now today, what we're going to be doing. Is diving into part two of 25 plus scary money statistics. And I'm actually going to take you through a bunch of these today that we are going to go through things like car loans. We're going to talk about home loans and mortgages.

We're going to talk about sports betting. Ironically, we're going to be talking about retirees and how much they have saved up for spending. We're going to talk about Gen Z. There's a bunch of money statistics here that we're going to be going through. And this is going to be one that I'm really excited to dive into.

So we have a ton of statistics to go through. This is going to be action packed. So without further ado, let's get into it. All right. So next let's talk about car loans and we've kind of lumped the stats for car loans, all under one category here for number 13. And what we're gonna be talking through here is a bunch of different things.

The average car payment for new vehicles has now increased to 734 for most people. They're not going to be able to afford that if they live into the parameters that we talked about. Now, what are those parameters? I want you to at least put 20 percent down or have gap insurance, have that car loan for four years or less, and 7 percent or less of your gross income should be spent on monthly car payments.

What does that mean? Well, what that means is that, for example, let's say you make a hundred grand per year. Let's make this math easy. Okay. And if you make a hundred thousand dollars per year. That means that you'd be able to spend 7, 000 per year on your car payment and still be financially responsible.

It's kind of the goal here, but your car loan has to be four years or less. Okay. Really? I want you to have closer to three years before years of less is fine. So 7 percent on your car payment. And so that means your car payment cannot be more than 583 if you make 100, 000 per year. Most people do not make a hundred thousand dollars per year.

And the average car payment is 734. That's a scary statistic because it is appreciating asset that goes down in value over time. Now, do you need a car? Absolutely. But you don't need the fanciest jacked up truck, or you don't need the brand new Tahoe with black rims. Instead, you need what you can afford.

And really when it comes to money controlling this expense, this is the number one wealth killer for most people is their cars. And so if you can control this expense, it will pay dividends for ever for you. Now, if you're not going to get a car loan, I'd prefer you to pay in cash. I'd be better overall.

If you can do that, that'd be great as well. But making sure that you keep your car loans within those parameters or less is very, very important. Now the average car payments for use in lease vehicles. Is now 525 for used cars. So that's probably closer to where the average American should be is where those used vehicles are.

The average amount borrowed for a new vehicle is 40, 927 and Americans owe 1. 626 trillion on auto loans. Now this is the highest it's ever been. And this could be for a number of different reasons, but it is 9. 1 percent of American consumer debt, 9. 1%. And this is something where I think a lot of people are getting themselves into trouble because of their car payments.

You can see it. I see people in my neighborhood and I know they're not making the amount of money of their cars that they drive. I just saw somebody in my neighborhood got a brand new Cybertruck wrapped up beautifully in this weird blue color. And then their spouse got a brand new G Wagon in the house they live in.

I'd be very surprised if they could actually afford those cars. Now, maybe they do. Maybe they can more power to them, but I'm judging you. I'm judging you for those cars because I don't think you can afford it. So I'm probably one of the only people that would judge them. Most people are probably thinking how cool they look or how cool they would be looking in those cars.

But anyways, that was a fun tangent. So that is a big thing that you need to focus on is making That you were controlling your car payments because it can really be a detriment to you. Now, also making sure that your auto loan is not high interest debt. If you have high interest debt right now, especially at the time of recording this, make sure you try to refinance that auto loan into a lower interest debt situation.

The best way to do this, honestly, is your local credit union. Your local credit union usually has really good interest rates, especially if you have a decent credit score. And so making sure you can try to refinance into some of those options is going to be really beneficial. Now, the dealership might try to sell you on some crappy loan.

And if you didn't get prefinance before you bought a car, maybe you didn't know or maybe just didn't do it, then go to the credit union, say, Hey, I want to refinance this car. What are your rates? They'll give you the rates and then you can refinance pretty simply. It takes like literally less than 30 minutes to do it.

So, uh, not a really big deal. As long as you have a pretty good credit score, you'll get a pretty good rate there. Number 14. Americans, this is on home loans and mortgages. Americans owe 12. 04 trillion dollars in mortgage debt, making it the largest debt category in the U. S. That's very much expected. The average mortgage interest rate in 2024 for a 30 year fixed loan is 7.

2%. Now that, my friends, is the scary stat, because I really don't like you toning that line of that high interest rate at 7%. So what we need to do is we need to watch where rates go if you have this high interest rate. And what I want you to do is see, hey, they just adjusted down a half percent at the time recording this.

If they continue to adjust down, I want you to make sure that you are making adjustments to your rate. A, it is making your payments way higher than they need to be. And so most Americans, if they have a 7. 2 percent interest rate, they are probably spending too much on their housing costs. They're probably spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

And because of that, You are making yourself house poor. You got to make sure that you are very careful about this, uh, because lenders will lend you too much money on your house. They are not the end all be all of where your money needs to go, which is funny because a lot of these lenders are also trying to be financial gurus now on TikTok.

Anyways, uh, so that is another thing that you really need to Spicy today. Um, and so one thing you need to do is make sure that you are reducing that interest rate by refinancing and watching rates. Now it may not make sense if it's like a half a percent, uh, you got to make sure that you are looking at the closing costs and how much those are going to cost before you do the refinancing.

But it is time to refinance. If you. Can get like a rate around 54 percent somewhere in that range that it definitely is time to refinance because it is a drastic difference. So just make sure you do the math on that mortgage delinquency rates actually remain low at 3. 2%. So that's positive news. And then the average mortgage payments for new loans is getting closer and closer to 3000 a month.

So this is something I think that Again, you really need to make sure that you understand how much you are spending on loans. You really need to make sure that you're controlling your housing expenses. Now, the same goes for rent. It needs to be 30 percent or less of your costs need to be spent on housing.

This includes home repairs, maintenance, and all those other things. So, if you are a person who has not run the numbers on your home situation yet, we have something called the Total Cost of Ownership Calculator. It's completely free. And if you go to mastermoney. co slash resources, you can run the numbers on your biggest home purchase ever.

For some people, if you're looking to buy a house, it may not actually make as much sense as you think it does. It is not the key to building wealth in America. The American dream is to own your own home and it is amazing to own your own house. I've owned my own home for over 10 years. But I did not do it for financial reasons.

I did it for other reasons like stability, having a family, I like to do home renovations. All of those are great reasons to own a home. Financial is not a great reason to own a home. So make sure that you understand that and use that total cost of ownership calculator. Now people would love to argue back with me on this and they love to say, Hey, my home is an amazing investment.

Look how much it's gone up every single year, but have you factored in all the extra costs, the maintenance costs, how much it costs you to mow the lawn, how much it costs you to do all those things, the cost to repair your home, the capital expenditures, which are things like when your roof goes bad, when you have to paint the house, things like when you have to replace the air conditioner, the big expenditures that you have, it all adds up to being not that great of a return.

And historically, People who have actually run the numbers in this know that. And so the total cost of ownership calculator will show you exactly why that is. Make sure you understand how that works first. 15. This is one that's newer and one that we're going to be talking about a little bit more is sports betting.

62 percent of Americans reported gambling in the last 12 months, wagering an average of 1, 027 each. That's a lot of money. Most Americans do not have 1, 000 saved in an emergency fund, but they are wagering over 1, 000 each on sports gambling. Men average 1, 294 while women, no surprise for men, while women average 433 in bets.

Gen Z gamblers wager the most averaging 1, 885. Now, one thing about sports gambling is I do it. It's not something that I don't do. Enjoy it. It makes me actually enjoy games more. I Specifically do it for football games. I don't do it really for anything else. Uh, but I give myself a very specific limit every single week, and that limit is a lot less than probably what most people have, and I cannot gamble more than that every single week.

I have no problem. If you're hitting your retirement goals and you are making sure that you are doing the things that you need to be doing with your money. You have an emergency fund. You have everything else saved up and ready to go. I have no problem with you. Sports gambling, because it's like spending money on a hobby, but if you do not have an emergency fund.

If you're not maxing out your Roth IRA, if you're not hitting your retirement goals, if you're not investing in an HSA or a 401k, if you're not doing any of those things, or you're not hitting the goals that you need to be hitting, my friends, what are we doing sports gambling? This is not something we should even be remotely Thinking about with our money.

Now you may have hit a big, a couple of different times, and now you think you're going to be able to do this over and over again. Let me just tell you, it's great to have fun with it. I get it. It makes the game more enjoyable. I do it, but it is not something that you do, especially with big money. I almost want to say ever.

And it's definitely not something you want to be doing when you do not hit your financial goals. Make sure you are hitting your financial goals. Stay strict with what you were doing with your dollars. And then if you want to do it as fun, or if you want to do it as a little hobby, or you enjoy doing it, make sure those dollars are small.

You set those limits and you are not gambling an extraordinary amount of money every single week. It is really important to do that. If you struggle with gambling, make sure you get support for that. There's a lot of foundations out there that will help you through that addiction. And it is a problem. It is an addiction.

And if you struggle with that, make sure you talk to someone. Maybe you found this podcast, which was like, I have no money left. I've gambled it all away. Then make sure you get the help that you need. It is so incredibly important to do that as you go through this process. Number 16, this is a huge one for most people is number 16.

This is child care costs. And this is one that is not talked about enough. Now we did an entire episode talking about child care costs and how to navigate these waters because these waters are really tough to navigate. And it is something that most people feel like they're probably getting ripped off.

If you have one or two kids specifically in daycare, it's usually for younger kids. Um, but if you have kids in daycare or you have kids where you need childcare for them, they cannot, you know, babysit themselves yet or they don't, you know, they don't have an older sibling or they can't babysit themselves yet.

Then you're paying for childcare costs and it is really, really expensive. Now let me show you something. For example, people who bought a house post 2020 with high interest rates, people who have young kids who are in daycare. And people who have student loans, those the millennials, I feel the worst for because they're getting hit from all angles and they are just trying to get by on all cylinders.

It is one of the toughest things that you have to deal with. And there's been nothing like this in the history of the world. This is what people don't understand. There's been nothing like this to have these types of expenses. Oh yeah. And let's mix in the fact that inflation is at record highs over the course of the last four years.

If you're in that situation, sometimes you just got to throw your hands up and say, I'm going to do the best I can month in and month out. And then you're going to take personal responsibility and we're going to get after it. We're going to throw our hands up. We're going to take a deep breath. We're going to put a plan together and we're going to get after it together.

That's the goal with me and you, me and you right here. If you're watching on YouTube, mano y mano, we're going to get after it and try to make a plan here to get past all of this, because this is a season in your life. It will change and it will pass, but it is a very difficult season. Now the average weekly cost of daycare is 321, which is a 13 percent increase from last year.

The average weekly cost of a nanny is 766. Now, let me tell you this right now. I've had kids in daycare, which I have one in daycare now, one is in kindergarten, one is in daycare, and then I'm having a third on the way, and we'll figure out what we're doing there when the time comes. Actually, by the time this episode comes out, she might be born.

We'll see. Very close to due date. And so I've had kids in daycare and we've had nannies. Nannies are definitely significantly more expensive than daycare, but you get the one on one experience. So if you can afford one, really, the care of your child is the most important thing. So if you have the extra dollars and you can afford one, it is a great experience.

At the same time, not everybody can afford that. You can see the difference there. It's like a 400 difference. For weekly costs, that's 1600 a month. It's a big, big difference. And so because of that, most people need to put their kids in daycare. And making sure you tour these daycares and making sure you understand what kind of care is going on is very important.

Making sure they give you frequent updates throughout the day is also very important. And making sure they actually care. Like honestly, that's the biggest thing. Is making sure they actually care is going to be really important. But if you're dealing with this, there's not a ton you can do here. It's not like you can just magically not work and not put your kids in childcare.

Now, in the episode where we talked about this, we talked about how to do the math to see if maybe you're on the fence, if one of your spouse or you should stay home. If you're on the fence about that, I talk about how to do the math there and how to think through that process. It is a, uh, Pretty detailed episode on childcare.

I would say it's probably one of the most detailed ones I've ever heard. Um, so if you want to check out that episode, we'll try to link it up down below in the show notes. Um, and hopefully that will help you through that process. The next one is half of retirees fear outliving their savings. So if you fear outliving your savings, what we're going to do is we're going to do a little math here and we're going to figure out, are we going to outlive our savings or not?

So what we're going to do is we're going to do the 25 X rule. And if you're pre retirement, the 25 X rule works really, really good. But when you're in retirement, What you can do is understand the 4 percent rule, meaning you could draw it on 4 percent every single year of your portfolio and still be able to preserve your portfolio throughout your retirement.

That's going to be a really important rule to understand. Now, if that is not enough for you, we need to also factor in social security. How much are you getting in social security? And is that going to help cover the difference? Because that's how you really can figure out Am I going to outlive my savings or not?

So if you have this fear, try to do the math first websites like AARP has uh, calculators, but there's also just for calculators that you can use in retirement online that can help you through this process, but just figure out how much do I have invested? Take 4 percent of that every single year. And that's how much you can live on and be able to preserve your wealth and then factor in add in social security and hopefully that covers it enough for what you're trying to do.

So that's how you do the math on that. So you can reduce that stress and anxiety if you have it. I'm sure it still lingers around from what a lot of people have told me is that it's one thing to kind of run all these calculations in these simulations, but once you actually retire. It is a whole nother thing when you have to start drawing on the money and it actually can be a fearful thing for a lot of people.

So really important to kind of think through that and see exactly where you land. 18. This is one that we've covered a lot on how to do this already, but 37 percent of Americans have more credit card debt than retirement savings. Now, most people who are in credit card debt, I would assume don't have a lot of retirement savings cause they're not, they're not great with their money yet.

And so if that is you get that debt paid off, prioritize saving for retirement. You have money flipped. If that is you and you probably have a negative net worth. And so we got to work to get out of that. We have a free debt course. If that's you also that will walk you through exactly how to get out of debt.

If you had a master money dot co slash courses, it is absolutely free. I never want to charge anybody who was in debt. And so we have a free debt course. We want to teach you how to get out for free. It takes you about an hour. Um, and you can go through that. It's a video course step by step. Number 19 84 percent of Americans feel financial stress.

Now, this is the most powerful thing that I think money can do is money can reduce your stress and it can reduce your anxiety. And that is what I want for every single person who listens to this podcast is I believe that money can bring some sources of happiness, meaning reducing stress. That's going to increase happiness, reducing anxiety.

That's going to increase happiness. And it's going to help you just feel better about life. When I first started out, In my career, I was living paycheck to paycheck. So if anybody's listening, living paycheck to paycheck, I feel ya. And I was stressed about money all the time. Once I figured out how to start tracking my spending, getting my money together, starting to earn more money, starting to put those extra dollars towards retirement, starting to build up the emergency fund and getting all these things in place.

All of a sudden the stress melted away. And I remember the first time I experienced this, I had a car that needed a new part that was going to cost me two thousand five hundred dollars. And for the first time in my life, the money was just there. And because I had the cash just there, I did not have to stress about it.

And I cannot tell you how amazing that feeling was. To have cash on hand so that when an emergency came up, the money was just there. That was the most freeing thing. And my wife and I both looked at each other. We were early in our marriage and we said, This is amazing and I can never go back. And that's one of the biggest fears I have is going back to that feeling of like, where's my money going to be?

Even though now that we've built wealth, we've become millionaires, but that's still one of the biggest fears is falling back to those days because it is the worst feeling in the world. And once you feel what it feels like to not have to feel that ever again. It is absolutely life changing. That's why this podcast exists.

I want every single person listening to this show to get the value, to feel that feeling. It is absolutely amazing. And so working on your emergency fund, building up that six month emergency fund, making sure you have cash on hand in the high yield savings account, making sure that you were investing your money for your financial future and making the right financial decisions is the most important things.

Otherwise you're going to be living in a stressful cycle your entire life. And I don't want that for anybody listening to this show along those same lines. 44 percent of Americans are stressed about their lack of savings, and 56 percent of Americans are not saving enough for retirement. All of those fall into the same category.

They're all really important to take care of. 58 percent of Gen Z years find budgeting intimidating. So listen, Gen Z. I'm gonna put my hat backwards on YouTube so I can speak to you guys here. No cap. Budgeting is not intimidating. In fact, budgeting is gas. So, in all seriousness, let me explain this to you guys because a lot of people get intimidated by budgeting and it's not something you absolutely have to do.

I don't want you to spend all your time budgeting and in spreadsheets and doing all this other stuff. Instead, I want you to make Important decisions that are going to change your finances. Actually, I don't want you to struggle cutting back on avocado toast or lattes or cutting back on whatever you cut back on.

Instead, what I want you to do is you have two options here. One, you can automatically. Start to set up automations on your money. We talk about that all the time. That's what we, our core value here is that master money is you need to automate your money. First. Secondly, though, is that you can do something called the reverse budget and what the reverse budget is, is it as a way for you to save off the top.

So your money comes in, you save up the top and you spend what is left over. So you're taking care of your emergency fund and you're taking care of your retirement goals and then you spend what is left over. What does this do? It gets you out of the spreadsheet and it reduces your stress and anxiety around this stuff.

It's pretty simple. So you're going to automatically save when you get paid, and then you're going to spend whatever is left over in that checking account. And that's how you manage your money. So it doesn't take you a bunch of time trying to figure out, uh, did I spend too much on groceries here? No, whatever's in your checking account, that's what you got.

And so that's how you manage your money in a way that is much more freeing. And much less stressful. Now the reverse budget, one big thing that I think about that is it's a little easier when you have more money, like when you have some extra cushion, cause you can make mistakes with the reverse budget.

So it's a lot easier to do when you have more money, when you have less money, you have to have a really good understanding of what you're spending is and how much you're going to have coming in and what's going to be spending here in the future. And so tracking that stuff is a little more important in your younger years, I think.

But if you're intimidated by it, make sure you're just doing the reverse budget. And you can also use Monarch money, a sponsor of this show, but it's also an amazing tool that I use every single day. You can use my code PFP, you get 30 day free trial. And it's something I think that's really going to help you because it automates everything.

It doesn't make it intimidating. They have tutorials. They show you how to do it. So don't get intimidated by budgeting, get after it. And if you have any questions of budgeting, please reach out to me. 23, nearly half of millennials regret not saving enough. So if you're a gen Z, take lessons from your elder millennials here.

Most of them regret not saving enough because they did not start early. And so starting early as possible is going to be really, really important. Another important reason to budget is the next one. 70 percent of Americans struggle to afford basic expenses and nearly 50 percent of Gen Xers say they're behind on retirement savings.

So really if you look at every single age category, you're going to see people are stressed about money. You're going to see people are stressed about how much they've saved. You're going to see people are stressed and cannot take care of an emergency expense, and you're going to see that all of these scenarios.

Are becoming increasingly important for people to have a financial education. And the reason why this podcast exists and the reason why we're even doing this episode is because I want you to understand how to do this stuff. And I want you to know that you can take control of your finances and it is in your power to change your financial life.

What if you're the first person in your family? To actually take control of their finances and you can break that chain of poverty that your family has had forever and ever. Or maybe you were raised in a wealthy family. You were never taught this stuff and you don't know how to go out on your own and you're never given that financial character to build you up.

Well, this is the time you can teach yourself to do this stuff. I promise you, you can make sure you're subscribed to this podcast. Make sure you stay tuned with us and you will be able to do this stuff. I promise you that is the stuff we teach here. Is how to set up your financial foundation, how to set up a base, how to automate the whole process.

So you don't have to spend so much time thinking about it, how to think about the things that actually matter with your money and how to build wealth and how to grow your money. That's what we're here for is to teach you that stuff. And so over time, you're going to put in the time, you're going to put in the work, and you're going to see that your net worth is going to grow over time.

And that's exactly why we do this stuff is to show you that. So I'm so incredibly excited for each and every single one of you listening to this podcast. I think that if you're just getting started, it is amazing. If you're listening because you're just shocked by some of these stats, they are amazing.

And it is one of those things that we all need to work together, talk about money more, teaching each other about money more so that we can all start to build wealth. I believe anybody in this world can build wealth and I want you to start today if you haven't started or if you're making progress, I want you to tell me about that too.

So I really appreciate each and every single one of you listening to this two part series. Really, really excited for some of the stuff we have coming up in the future. Uh, this is going to be great. The rest of this year and next year is going to be the best years that you guys have yet. Financially, I know it's going to be and we're going to be giving you as many resources as possible to help you through that process.

Listen again, if you guys have any questions, make sure you drop me an email. I will make sure to either read it. And if I don't get back right away, it usually sometimes it takes me a couple of weeks because we get so busy. So many emails now, um, so sometimes it takes me a little bit to get back to you, but I promise you I've read it and sometimes it's going to appear on the show.

Sometimes it may, I may just respond to you via email, but we will go through all those, uh, and make sure we are giving back to you guys. Cause that's the entire goal is to get back to you guys as much as we possibly can. Again, thank you guys so much for listening. We truly appreciate you and we will see you on the next episode.